The UK Government has rejected claims that millions of elderly and infirm people are being put at risk of contracting potentially life-threatening flu because of problems distributing the vaccine.
The Times newspaper reported on Thursday that flu vaccine clinics have been cancelled and patients turned away from surgeries because of a lack of the vaccine to meet excessive demand.
Latest figures for vaccine distribution reveal that just 37 per cent of the 13.2 million Britons in need of immunisation had received a jab by the end of October, the newspaper said.
But a Department of Health spokeswoman said despite slight delays in delivery because of problems with manufacturing, there was enough flu vaccine to go around, and there is no shortage of flu vaccines in UK.
The flu vaccine is a vaccine to protect against the highly variable influenza virus.
The annual flu kills an estimated 36,000 people in the United States each year. The annually updated trivalent flu vaccine for the 2006-2007 season consists of hemagglutinin (HA) surface glycoprotein components from influenza H3N2, H1N1, and B influenza viruses.
Each year the influenza virus changes and different strains become dominant. Due to the high mutability of the virus a particular vaccine formulation usually only works for about a year. The World Health Organization co-ordinates the contents of the vaccine each year to contain the most likely strains of the virus to attack the next year. The flu vaccine is usually recommended for anyone in a high-risk group who would be likely to suffer complications from influenza.